- On Overcoming Writer's Block
When in doubt, attack.
(Quoted by Simon Jenkins, "In a Thousand Columns the Search for Xanadu Has Yielded Only Dustbowls," The Times, May 11, 2005) - On the Influence of Shakespeare
"Truism" is a word of abuse, but it should not be, for the whole point of a truism is that it is true, and those Shakespearean phrases that have been worn away almost to dust remain alive in his mouth even if they do not in ours. If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It’s Greek to me," you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger, if your wish is father to the thought, if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool’s paradise--why, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then--to give the devil his due--if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a doornail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then--by Jove! O Lord! Tut, tut! for goodness’ sake! what the dickens! But me no buts--it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.
And the pleasure of Shakespeare's language is inextricably interwoven with what he says in it. His mind is an instrument of such stupendous understanding, depth and creativity that it towers over the human race, and to hear the content of that mind clothed in that poetry provides a pleasure which consumes like fire.
(Enthusiasms, Jonathan Cape, 1983) - Memo to the Editor
From: Bernard Levin
To: Whom It May Concern
Date: March 5th 1980
Somebody (the (proof)readers, perhaps?) changed the last line of the second para of my col this morning, from “giants in the earth . . . ” to “giants on the earth.” If you can find out who did it, I would be grateful if you could let him know, tactfully, that I have three comments on the matter.
- I would rather he didn’t.
- He has involved me in the greatest crime in my calendar, to wit, misquotation (the phrase is from Genesis, generally attributed to God, who should know).
- Same as 1, above.
- Levin's Adjectives
Labour at last has a modern leader ready to sweep to power and end this sorry era.
The longer and more frequently I contemplate Mr Blair, the more I like the cut of his jib. This has nothing to do with the alternative; I long ago concluded that the present Government was worm-eaten, exhausted, dishonest, incompetent, lazy, mendacious, ignorant, rotten, false, disreputable, deceitful, unsavoury, squalid, abominable, soiled, piratical, shifty, discreditable, infamous, improper, obscene, hateful, impure, degraded, dilapidated, shabby, grovelling, discredited, renownless, tarnished, disgraced, shameless, creeping, abject, two-faced, unscrupulous, villainous, treacherous, untrustworthy, prevaricating, sinister, crawling, insincere, fishy, spurious, unclean, felonious, infamous, venal, base, vile, bribable, rancid, disloyal, scheming, unsavoury, sickening, fetid, nauseating, putrid, defaulting, mouldering, evil, vicious, damnable, maleficent, wrong, ineffectual, mean, inferior, contemptible, superficial, irrelevant, expendable, powerless, pathetic, nugatory, impotent, jumped-up, cheap, insalubrious, flea-ridden, unsound, nasty, baneful, foul-tonged, cursed, unwarranted, execrable, damned, abnormal, unreasonable, virtueless, peccant, sinful, unworthy, hopeless, incorrigible, tergiversating, brutalised, nefarious, culpable, scandalous, worthless, flagitious, gross, indefensible and unpardonable to say the least. But Blair, as far as I can see, is to be found on his own feet, not measuring by the scabrous (I missed that one) Lilliputians now arrayed against him.
("3,000 Cheers for a Man Who Can End This Sorry Era," The Times, September 23, 1994)
See also: From the Carpentry Shop to the Forge, by Bernard Levin.
